>> host: dan-el padilla peralta your memoir has come out at a crucial time for immigration debate in the united states. what is your experience in privilege without papers teach politicians and voters and 11 million undocumented people in this country about success and perseverance? >> guest: thank you for the question i am so glad to have the men wore come out at a time when these questions are talked about. to make contributions to the conversation there already contributing so much from all walks of life to have that unique and experience but of course, those who have seen success at a high-level with contributions to american society. although donald trump is getting much of the news these days they're thinking of the conversation, and though word in legal and throughout the very core of my memoir is to engage in this conversation. and placed to make a longer term contribution. so with that legal status. >> though lack of legal status that you had growing up defined you and that is the drumming in the background. talk about the beginning of your life here in new york you are battling some spanish what was your experience and your very own? >> my first memories are an amazing sense of discovery with the realization that little by little the implications were so with my parents there was something peculiar or something not quite right about our immigrant situation. even though i was 5467 i understood what was going on that affected us and so why earliest memories i think of a subway ride and the walk with my parents with that sense of foreboding that they could not secure steady employment so all of that contributed. >> and your father as you write decided he could no longer produce a living that he wanted in new york so he left and went back to the dominican republic but it was your mom's decision is to keep you and your younger brother here. she told me a 1.when she talked your kindergarten teacher to learn how well you we're doing was one aspect that made her decide we have to keep the family hear. talk about that fateful decision. >> guest: initially it had to do with the conversations my mom and my dad had they learned of was really taken in kindergarten. i had several teachers in kindergarten and then continuing into first grade there were more conversations with my first grade teacher but it came down not what is i only in joint the process of learning how was taken with the possibility of another language and i would embrace it. so my mom was inspired by these conversations that would be great for my children to have an education and to be exposed but my dad was very worried because one of the difficulties that presented itself was despite be issued to not secure steady employment in the way they wanted to he told my mom he wanted to richard and she said no. i think we should stay. if you want to go that is fine but i will stay and we will forge a life on our own in new york city. that will make sure my children have the very best available to them. >> host: if not for your mom's decision we would not be here today. to ever resent that decision because it made life difficult for you? >> it was perplexing for me that we would be on our own i didn't know if a and when he may reconsider or comeback and i didn't know at the time how committed my mom was that we would stay in a matter what. only with the passage of time that she was absolutely serious. that somehow that in spite of the obstacles to a transition of the shelter system that with the help of the opportunity to forge a new life to be aligned with her vision. >> at the same time you are in shelters from chinatown every church you are finding books whether pulling them out of the dumpsters that was like changing. talk about the book how we lived in ancient greece and rome? what does that say as a nine year-old? >> does you mentioned i have an attachment for books. it was really fuelled by parents so they encourage us any opportunity. we did not have money to buy books but i would see them and once to take them home and at the chinatown library with the profiles of countries who wanted to travel less some point i read a book are in spain but then i came across a book called people lived in ancient greece and rome. this is a world completely unlike the world that i knew. from contemporary york and he spoke these languages of latin and ancient greek. >> this gave me a sense of what a legacy might be. with the cultural legacy needed tour of the culture with the study of ancient history and to help! >> >> or even the pros of beazer but then i realized there was another dimension of this the realization of the classics that allow you to work with many different kinds of material. i was very eclectic killeen down the rabbit hole but it is a different culture to think of those ruins and think about what it means to study history. what makes something 2,000 years ago but the final aspect is to see is how much of what it does now with the engagements of that classical tradition. even with the dominican republic there is a preoccupation with the greek and roman as it shaped contemporary political discourse. this is what i hope to convey to my students. >> host: even in the issue with the migration and maybe you could talk about what the word to the ancient said about foreigners and how you can relate those to today. >> in my early teenage years and was very fond to copy down what i thought was resident i could not see what it was but i was trying to make my way through and i was still very much been in the historical approach to the classics. why? sova eric is a fantastic arrangement delivered by pericles. the speech is delivered near the beginning of the war and one of the things he focuses on is what makes evidence so special -- athens so special and later it is the idea or the reality that athens does not support foreigners now sparta was known as a place to ruth engaged in occasional deportation of the foreigners but pericles talks about how the love of the mind does not make one strong so what that point it would revolve around a certain topic mattered a great deal. so i think we have a better understanding of selfhood and identity. >> host: after talking to you i feel i was in a seminar we have so much to talk about and you have so much to do teach everybody from history to philosophy and ancient greece. it is very fun and not to mention baseball. we will get to that but you talk about being intellectual and your intellectual pursuits. you are a teenager also living in an area that is not known for intellectual pursuits. oh lot of your friends in death could do not appreciate your intellectualism. how do you bridge the two worlds? so now we have you to collegiate and the elite high school because of a scholarship because of your reading you were discovered by an art teacher and get jook of the chip your also commuting between the two worlds. how would you do that? tube take off the cape for go into a phone booth? how to rectify your personality? >> collegiate had a dress code so i was sorry that would be walking around in my neighborhood that i would get jumped so every time i would walk of the way to school i would make sure not to have on my tie then when i came back and got off at the subway station and i would take off my tie. but in addition to that cover more of the complicated interplay with how i begin to understand my own aspirations against of backdrop within the two worlds. also collegiate commodus special place has a tremendous emphasis on our word intellectualism. as you have to show that you were read -- to have read the book cover knowledgeable about but if you're too ostentatious you have to calibrate of the one hand to it comes across incidentally i just read this but yet you could just not go up immediately, and your friends to say that i read plato last night to because they would my cue -- mach you. i could say that to the friends that collegiate but you have to say in a particular way so it wasn't enough to announce it but i realized as i was going back to my old neighborhood at first i thought i cannot be intellectual around my friends. they would not get that but it took me many years to realize they were willing to except that side of me but that was a realization well after we had grown up together that not only had a tremendous respect for that but in their own way they tried to communicate to me that what i was doing was cool to them even though they would tease me at the time. and it was the back-and-forth to figure out a the two different kinds the people at collegiate but we all operate under that assumption first is going back to a neighborhood to feel i could not talk about this but yet everyone knew i was going through this because they read the text and in their own way they wanted to talk with me about them but i will also is looking for that of vocabulary so that was more confusing. >> host: vocabulary. i love how you bring up that word because you're never far hasn't interesting juxtaposition. of first was jarring but i now understand you have slaying from the hood a and high prose academics speaking and writing and you have cursed words and then socrates. soto me why you decided to write in the two different ways? >> i thought the only way i could capture my own style and i became worried every early stage if i was structure that in one tone i would do a disservice as so much of the experience of my adolescence involved the questions for the learning of language. so one of the problems i wrestled with as a teenager is when exactly do transition from one to one another? when do sheftel new york? >> host: you have to think about that? >> i felt that i did but over time it was almost unconscious. but no point were active reflection is far away from my mind as they always think about it but i could do it pretty easily. so that gave me a sense of of power meant but i realized it is difficult for some people to understand or appreciate this. some said this is neat and they would play the game with me. i had college friends who were very fascinated but then there is another dimension those that focus on that aspect that i realize also posted -- posed some challenges of the shoals of identity. so what would that mean to me? would that bother me that i felt so singular and distinctive? that for anybody else would talk about how appropriate? >> their realization at the level and of the sensibilities i was approaching. with the identities that i thought it meant but other people have different reasons and i had to a knowledge. >> host: when you got to oxford did you divert your british trend to call people boilers? you were using the slang? [laughter] >> even on the one hand i thought that average sharing something with them to learn these words or the terms to use them very playfully aunt to become better friends. reform to a community but there's always the sense of lingering one these. to read i always tell comfortable? no. but how do iss and evaluate what constitutes comfortable or acceptable usage ted what doesn't? in the secondary question is why should i be arbitrated by dash server jury? certainly someone thought at some point that i would be too cavalier. so they should be allowed to do this also. but i shared however they want. >> your worlds collided at one point and some of the suspense is out because to have risen a book because we know how far you have come but there is a moment that your status was is in jeopardy because of a teenage prank trying to be cool and i never referring to the tower records incident. you described in the book you say a lot better than i would bet what motivated you to shoplift? and then to realize oh my goodness it could be the incident that ruined all of my dreams. >> there were many. i spent a lot of time on the weekends with my neighborhood friends and we began to scale up the pranks and initially they were of the order of 2.the seats on the train with moisturizer or lotion. [laughter] but then we would entertain crazier ideas until one day we said we'll just take the stuff from tower records. i became the mastermind. and part of my decision to be a mastermind revolved around my friends validation of meet to be the mastermind so i realized they thought i was smarter and they were giving me credit for being smarter. so that was very flattering but that word me to thinking i am smart enough to pull this off. it isn't a big deal it is a big corporation. what is wrong? we each have our own rationalizations but when we were together you had to play cool are you going to do this or not? are you going to be a punk or back out? only being apprehended that the magnitude was a colossal mistake and the stakes became so crystal clear and transparent have the police ben caldwell would be in the world of trouble and every single privilege that i had better allow to experience from scooping to going into the ivy league school, this all could have vented and then i also could have been deported. so even in that moment but the nature of the system became clearer to me. there is another dimension with the realization that the outcomes of these pranks were asymmetric. i could have gotten deported but that but not happen if they were born in the states so some of my friends the outcome could have been different and michael beecher friends those are slightly different reasons because they would have done well positioned to make a problem go away. and it kept me thinking about the incident many years after. >> host: you got off with just a fine and did not tell your mother and recently and had your parish priest help you out with a $400 and i am sure you are happy about this so tower records still does not exist. >> is the attribute. >> host: so talk about what happened when you get to princeton and you start realizing through having to do work study and all of the activities that led to your senior year of now what? want to study abroad and get a scholarship to oxford. how do you realize by the end of your senior year that this really is a problem and i need to get an immigration lawyer and start changing my status? >> that has unfolded in several stages. when i was admitted to princeton they gave a nice financial aid package but even that was not the most rate for word of issues because i was encouraged jews speak out and explain my status but for a brief period of time without would get caught. then i realized that my financial aid package included a works study and i could not work. when i explain this to someone the answer that came back was tried to fix your status to apply for the student visa. the answer i received is that could be a really, really risky undertaking if i did not get the student visa and cannot return to the united states price that i don't know what other avenues i have one was that i would consider marriage but to file an application but i had gotten nowhere despite the support. when i was transitioning from junior to senior year of college i didn't have much time for coverage, jr. i tried to get the ball rolling and i reach out to people and every petty gave me the same answer there is nothing that can be done. so what does not allow you to normalize your status you have to wait until legislation passes. my senior year i met with a lawyer who was put in touch through princeton he helped me put together an application for a retroactive status with the circumstances of my childhood and the nature had really prevented me from legalizing normalizing so we asked about the student visa just so i could finish my a time of princeton and from there you have the proper transition but they didn't want to rule all of that. >> host: at that point you also start in listing some high-powered senators. senator clinton and ted kennedy routine lectures on your behalf and variety about how extraordinary were. >> once my lawyer and i thought it was best to combine that application of high-profile political support so we submitted the letters in conjunction so i was very fortunate from dave organization that i attended it a little school through all the communities came together to lend their support from politicians but then another issue intersected that is from another piece of good fortune i would have been barred to day from the entry because of the tie my was undocumented. this led to our ratcheting it up in order chiru get the application approved. but it was not so i decided after my princeton commencements to take off to the u.k. without having my status adjusted iran to facing the likelihood of the tenure ban. >> host: you were an england not knowing if you can come back? >> initially they were difficult because of the sense of uncertainty and being in a new country and that's not to say that i wasn't having a great deal of fun and. [laughter] ended the most peculiar institution that i have ever experienced because at the graduate level, oxford operated to the laissez-faire principles. we were trying to keep up to our own devices but not even like most that they allowed them to follow and have you can cobble together one of the consequences is also with a weird idea of how to professionalize. so i met with my supervisor the second your favorite on sunset with another once every few months we would chat. that encouraged a great deal of slacking off i must say but even stowe one of the questions that lingered over everything is as if i could return to the united states said under what condition? that the emotional investment proved to be very taxing and continued to be even if i could obtain a the work visa. >> host: and/or during research back to princeton at that point. >> was hired for a research project right of princeton with a thesis advisor and when i was hired an application was filed with for the work visa submitted the paperwork in but did and after a few months we got word that it had been approved. >> host: there is a point when you are at oxford slacking off that you entertained ideas of other careers. not specifically in the book but it gives though listeners hear a little insight to your personality and the many sides that you have. you thought about major league baseball? you love baseball so much which by the way is a very academic pursuit as i have learned. what is it that fascinated you and why did you decide that wasn't the career for me? >> with the baseball team or baseball publication because i thought it was undergoing an extraordinary transformation. my dad and i watched a lot of baseball i was the avid yankees fan and then when they became good but one of the questions that intrigues me is how you think of baseball in quantitative terms. i was not great in math in high school. [laughter] it was hard for me to get my mind around the concept but to the idea of the analytics how it has many but how it would converge but this is deaconess but how du not have the financial wherewithal. >> money ball. >> money ball. [laughter] so thinking about all these things it is great to work for the front office or to write for a baseball publication and a flow to the idea but i decided i liked the ancient world too much. but yes. baseball. >> host: they did play baseball back nc you could continue that. would have of about this idea you are wasting a green card interview in the first state to buy you dated july 6 years is and just let me get married to a u.s. citizen. it was a friendship that evolves from baseball and intellectual pursuits and now you go from the undocumented to roughly becoming a permanent resident. to use the higher path has taken you? have you discussed that? >> we laugh because when we began dating she did not know that some of the early baseball games were dates. we have to one was the group experience that was organized by our mutual friend i thought this he was cool but then i fell out of touch because i was consumed with adjusting might immigration status that fall i decided to start a ph.d. program on base but i needed to transition out of that status so it was consuming all of my attention in the fall. then 2009 kerry around and one day herb mutual friend said we have a spare tickets to franchisees and they had a great time. and then would you like to go to a game next week? it didn't matter they were not in town but even though we will both get the map we had such a great time that after that we agreed it would be wonderful to go to more games and that is how we started dating them first year in california we were wrong distance but i convinced her to move out which was a marvelous development but now she has seen the terms of the immigrants trying to obtain a status because we file a concurrence she got to see all this paperwork that we both have to fill out if she said oh my gosh this has been your life. but not to have any clear idea when we get an answer back and now i understand. now it is mutual understanding that we all live this experience. >> host: that is beautiful because you are still waiting for immigration and your interview. but one passage to have at the end in the epilogue that i thought was really the message you wanted to leave everybody with peeling capsize so perfectly here. >> emigrant brothers sisters of course, people will yell view that america is not yours the you have no stake for no place or no right to belong in america you must not let them get away with saying that shot back to your hand and feet and mind is as much a part of america as they are we must fight to ensure it is and the dream of the chauvinistic few but the fulfillment of hope for many. america is ours and we must not concede otherwise. the almost sounded like it was from the ancient world but this is your message. what do you want to leave readers and viewers today with this optimism? despite everything you have been through with the homeless shelter, i.e. the privilege, and still to figure out your immigration status and with the american society one of the eric humans i have made. >> america cannot be this restricted to have that exclusive prerogative of the accidental fate and fortune to be born here. of course, america's power is projected all over the world. many people have felt america's power. so when i think of the immigrant experience i want to communicate whether we have parents or grandparents it is far beyond that i was born in america as a year in the process to build these communities as a hybrid in multi-cultural that is what i want to give to "the reader". >> host: also say i hate and i love america. why? >> is the ambivalence to the etf and a political machine. i love the communities of new york city the educational institutions and the intellectual and social communities that spanned the country that i have traveled to all the friends i have made, these are all aspects of my growth into identities. >> get the same time with the american ideals that america can do no wrong to not be challenged or interrogated that accomplishments not in need of any critique. i don't believe we should recompense with what is what america has been an also will be disliked a certain aspects of society and that continued margin was nation of immigrants that is what will enable america to peak and for all of those who come to its. >> host: the future of the immigration reform and the dialogue of illegal immigrants taking the jobs and here you are. you have papers me or not yet a citizen teaching incarcerated students at columbia as part of your fellow ship going to be a professor in 2016 teaching young hungry minds about the agent world, as relevant today but in many people's minds you are taking the jobs of the citizens of this country. does that bother you? >> get used to. when i was a senior not long after my profile came out i was outraged how do you feel that means a deserving americans citizen did not get that chance? the doesn't work like this it is not a zero sum game but they saw some of that application paperwork was barely comprehensible that i was accepted as the international student nurses the american student and how to fall flat on their face but there is a broader argument to be made on how we a understand the job situation and what it means for immigrants to pick up certain opportunities here and for those that they are given with it is not an zero some because as we know from the economic literature not only do they contribute with taxes and social security and the safety net but by virtue of the fact they consume goods and drive the american economy. so somehow this immigrant has taken a job from a well deserving american? so one of the things that it is incumbent upon every one is to be a more sophisticated argument that we may want to bring to bear on this but in the longer term not only to allow current undocumented immigrants but to reevaluate the nature of our border patrol and not closing them or restricting them more policing them in the way that we have. >> we now have daca in its third year so how will the country transition as a new president? >> it depends on to the president is but with that in mind there are some worth keeping be eye on with the status of reforms ushered into be up in the court as we're not exactly sure when this will be resolved and the problem will not be resolved before the election. so that is of bumble of reforms the could affect the parents to help expand those protections to a larger number of undocumented immigrants but recently it came out from the mouth of senator mcconnell there was no intention to see immigration reform until after the next presidential election. this is serious for those two of us are committed and cared deeply that reform be passed as soon as possible but also it should position us to look backwards and for word to think about what the white house has been doing the last few years. but though large scale deportation the first half of the obama administration is not only of reprehensible but they also point to the issue that will have to be resolved by the next presidential election. . .